Small Biz Structure: Five Critical Departments for Your Startup.

As a new era in business management enters another year, we increasingly live in a time where the start-up is King in the corporate hierarchy. Entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg and his company Facebook, for example, have made billions by building a company from the ground up, and many businesspersons are following Zuckerberg’s lead.

Increasingly, for example, revolutionary new forms of experimentation with start-up methods (the so-called “Lean Start-up Movement,” described here by the Harvard Business Review) is minimizing the risk (a 75% failure rate) that new companies face when attracting investors and setting up the right corporate structure and departments.

But knowing what departments are necessary for success will stand you in good stead as you make the leap to creating a new business. Here are just a few tips on the structure you’ll need to take your start-up to the next level.

1. Accounting

Proper account management is extremely important in making sure your start-up is in compliance with tax rules and other similar laws, but the benefits to having a good accounting department are also important in knowing when your business deserves a tax break. Steps such as these can save your company thousands of pounds a year.

Additionally, always remember to separate accounting and payroll departments: One of the main mistakes that lead to embezzlement in the corporate world is assigning accounting work to the same person writing checks, allowing them to hide profits and siphon them to their own bank accounts. In business, as in life, it’s better to be safe than to be sorry.

2. Legal

If you can afford in-house counsel for your business, the service will pay high-dividends in the long-term by allowing you to avoid costly lawsuits protecting your intellectual property. Not all legal advice is cheap, but it is certainly cheaper than going to court over a minor matter that could be avoided through short-term preventative measures.

3. IT

As a start-up, you’ll want to make sure that your tech side of business is always running smoothly. A good IT department can do wonders in making sure customers and clients can always access your website and services. They can also secure your systems to prevent intrusion and theft.

4. Sales

A good sales team is a lot like a special forces unit in a military group, out ahead of the other troops scouting out leads and points of progress to be made. To make a business run, you first need to make sales. Those initial sales will provide you with the additional funding you’ll need to keep the company going. Companies like SalesVacancies.com, for example, can do much to help locate able sales reps and services and can be a start-up’s best friend.

5. Advertising

Getting the word out on a new product or service is half the battle in creating a successful start-up. Advertising, when done in-house, can let people know who you are and what you’re providing.

For these reasons, knowing the various departments that will work together to make your business succeed is one of the first steps towards creating a dynamic start-up. A good team that is firing on all cylinders is the best way to turn your start-up into a champion business, and that is when you can really start expanding your business horizons.